Along with geography, economics, and the desire to impress the opposite sex, religion has been one of the great guiding forces in human history. Some faiths spread across the world and change the way people view their place in the universe. Others are nipped in the bud, or remain niche faiths with little influence. And then, there are spasms of faiths like cults that got big and rolled through populations, only to be crushed. They could have been contenders, but in their failure, these cults shook empires and touched the lives of millions.


God-worshiping Society


Failing school is a tough hand to be dealt, but you gotta pull yourself together. Hong Xiuqian is an example of what comes from pushing yourself too hard. In 1836, he failed the state examinations, insanely important in 19th-century Qing China. It's understandable he was out of sorts. Still, falling into a delirious fever, and having visions of being carried in procession to a heavenly palace to meet ancient sages, is a bit much.

After having his physical heart replaced by a celestial heart, he met his Heavenly Father, Mother and older brother, Jesus Christ. It's more comforting to flunk out if you're Jesus' brother, so Hong ran with this new identity. In 1843, his ideas became more elaborate when he stumbled across a Protestant pamphlet called Quanshi liangyan ("Good Words to Admonish the Age" and combined half-understood Christian thoughts with his own unique ideas. He soon had a group of followers called the Bai Shangdi hui, or the God-worshiping Society. This would have been harmless if late Qing China wasn't such an awful place. The Manchu government ignored the problems of banditry and famine, and the Society filled the void. By 1851, Hong believed Heaven's will was for him to rise up and replace the Qing with the Taiping Tianguo, or Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. It's unknown how much he was thinking in his heart, "Give me a failing grade? No, I'll give all of you a failing grade!"

The rebels seized swaths of central and southern China and the southern capitol Nanking. As you'd expect, the Taiping Tianguo was a harsh militaristic theocracy, that advanced many progressive reforms. They were egalitarian, banning the cruel practice of female foot binding and promoting women as administrators and military officers. They sought social reform by banning slavery and polygamy, and sought to redistribute land to the general populace. They had strong moral laws against gambling, opium, prostitution, and drinking, and expected Sabbath observations with sermons and animal sacrifices.

To modern eyes, the Taiping are weird but probably preferable to the corrupt Qing. However, the Qing managed to suppress the movement in a war which cost 20 million lives, and also unleashed uncontrollable forces in the process. They allowed Han Chinese to rise into military ranks formerly reserved for Manchus, and requested assistance from foreign powers. Weakening their internal and external control would eventually lead to the Qing downfall.


http://www.grunge.com/34218/religious-cults-changed-course-history-2/?amp=1

The Xhosa's cattle-killing prophecies



In 1856, the South African Xhosa tribe were under severe pressure from British settlers and looking for a way to push them out. So when a young girl named Nongqawuse came back from chasing birds away from her uncle's crops with a story about meeting a mysterious man with a plan, people were inclined to listen. She claimed the MwaP told her if the Xhosa cattle were killed, the dead would rise from the earth. Her uncle was spiritual leader and backed up her story, elaborating that the living cattle the Xhosa raised were contaminated by a sickness. If they were killed, the Xhosa dead would rise from the sea and new cattle and livestock would emerge from secret underground caverns. Then the British would be finally driven from Xhosa lands and a new age of peace, one without death or misfortune, would arrive.

Some associated the returning spirits with the mysterious people known as "Russians," whom the Xhosa knew were powerful enemies of the British. They assumed these "Russians" were also black men who would come across the sea to aid the Xhosa if the cows were killed. This sounded great, so the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape and Transkei began to slaughter their cattle, and the paramount chief Sarhili ordered the Xhosa living under British rule to do likewise.

Still, there were some Xhosa who thought the whole thing was crazy nonsense and refused, which was understandable, considering how vitally important cattle were to their way of life. Those who believed started blaming the skeptics when the dead were tardy in arriving, and soon started to plunder and burn their farms as well. When things get crazy, it is the sane who suffer most.

Of course, the dead did not rise, and the resulting famine critically weakened the Xhosa, killing 40,000 people. The British governor of the Cape Colony took advantage with a cruel labor recruitment policy, offering the starving Xhosa jobs if they signed contracts promising to work anywhere, for any pay. Considering how swiftly the British settlers moved into Xhosa lands after the tragedy, some believe the whole situation was a deliberate British plot to weaken the powerful Xhosa people.


http://www.grunge.com/34218/religious-cults-changed-course-history-2/?amp=1

Fifth Monarchy Men


People have been saying we live in the End Times for centuries. One such cult group was the Fifth Monarchy Men. They interpreted the Books of Daniel and Revelations in a way which suggested there were four great empires of history: the Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman. This would be followed by the Fifth Monarchy, when Christ returned to Earth to rule for a thousand years of peace. Civil unrest in England and the execution of Charles I was seen by them as an obvious prelude to the End Times, in much the same way certain people today think anything bad that happens is evidence the end is nigh.

The movement spread out of London in 1651 and throughout southern England and Wales, attracting disaffected craftsmen, tradesmen and military officers. They saw Oliver Cromwell as a Second Moses, and were super excited when he dissolved Parliament in 1651. They were a major force in the Nominated Assembly, a political body based on the Sanhedrin of the Old Testament. The outbreak of the Anglo-Dutch war was celebrated, as they looked forward the outbreak of a Europe-wide war to bring down the Pope, who they saw as the Antichrist and "Roman Empire" representative.

Instead of the world order collapsing, the bickering Nominated Assembly proved ineffective, and was replaced by Cromwell's personal rule. Some Fifth Monarchy Men saw this as a betrayal and were imprisoned for sedition, while others kept quiet in hope things would get better. When Cromwell's Protectorate later collapsed and the British monarchy was restored, it was a death blow. This was not how things were supposed to go at all. Laws to repress meetings of this dangerous apocalyptic movement sent it underground, and a failed rebellion brought persecution of all nonconformist sects. The Fifth Monarchy struggled on until dying out completely in the 1680s. The End Times, meanwhile, are yet to arrive.


Donghak



In 1860, a wandering intellectual named Choe Je-u was doing what intellectuals of Joseon Korea did and, well, wandering. Somewhere in the mountains, Choe had a vision of Shangti (or Sangje), the Jade Ruler of the Universe, who gave him an immortality elixir and a manta to recite for the world's salvation. Shangti said a spiritual sickness was coming, which would spread through humanity until a new age called Hu-Cheon GaeByeok, or the Great Opening of the Later Heaven. This was the basis of the Donghak, or Eastern Learning faith, which taught humanity would be united with Heaven and all people made equal regardless of equal regardless of gender, wealth, or social status.

This faith was a new mixture of shamanistic and Taoist ideals, which stood in opposition to both the staid and repressive neo-Confucianism of the Joseon dynasty and the suspicious foreign faith called Seohak, Western Learning — or, as you probably know it, Roman Catholicism. Despite this, and his immortality mixture, Choe was caught by the authorities and executed, weirdly accused of actually being a secret Catholic all along, but his faith still spread.

In 1894, a Donghak adherent named Jeon Bong-jun led a revolt against the authorities in the small Gobu district, which soon widened into a greater rebellion protesting corruption and high taxes. As is often the case with these things, things got rapidly out of hand, and the Korean government requested military assistance from China and Japan, which was a disastrous idea. While the rebellion was violently quashed, tensions soon sprang up between the Chinese and Japanese troops, setting off events which would lead to the bloody First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and the outright annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910. Instead of a spiritual sickness, Asia was subjected instead to Japanese chemical and biological warfare.

http://www.grunge.com/34218/religious-cults-changed-course-history-2/?amp=1

Nigeria. Religion and prayers had removed sense from our lives. What we have now are adults with no mind of their own but that which the Daddy GO have said

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I will believe if you say Nigerians worship their daddy GO.

You will hear someone pray and say[b] 'the God of daddy GO'
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michlins:
Nigeria. Religion and prayers had removed sense from our lives. What we have now are adults with no mind of their own but that which the Daddy GO have said